the Nubian border.'
Meren sat forward on his stool, rested his arms on his knees, and shook his head. 'And if he does, we'll reconsider our approach, but I've other matters to worry about as well.'
'Ah, your fortnight is up, and the king is going to demand that you take a stance on this matter of the campaign.'
'He's going to be furious, and I don't like disappointing him. His life is so full of cares and duties.'
'He lives the life of a god.'
Meren glanced up at Kysen's disbelieving tone, but he didn't argue. Kysen's childhood before adoption had been as filled with pain as Tutankhamun's. His father had sold him after having failed to beat him into a state of craven submission. It wasn't Kysen's fault that he sometimes couldn't imagine the life of a king to be an ordeal.
Meren rose, wincing at the ache in muscles that had taken many jolts as his chariot raced across the desert floor.
'Time to return home. The calendar marked this as a day of fortune, so I'm hoping I'll be spared another evening listening to Horemheb and Tanefer plan the provisioning of troops and the supplying of border forts. And if I'm blessed, the king won't remember my promise to take sides for a few days.'
They left Tanefer and the other hunters gorging themselves on roast gazelle, and by the time the sun had reached its apex and begun its descent, they reached the house. In a short time Meren was standing in his bathing stall while a servant poured jar after jar of cool water over him. Reluctantly he signaled an end to the luxury and stretched out on the massage table nearby while his body servant rubbed oil into his skin.
While he was lying there, he perused several letters from his family. There was one from his sister, complaining that he neglected his daughters and should have visited them long ago. Was he neglectful?
Isis and Bener had to learn the skills of running a great estate and women's accomplishments that he couldn't teach them. Tefnut, his eldest, lived far away, in the delta with her husband. He missed them all, especially at night when he came home and caught himself listening for their bright laughter.
There was another letter, from his younger brother Nakht, whom he'd always called Ra. Meren unfolded the papyrus, skimmed the first few lines, and let it drop to the floor. More complaints about how Ra's judgment was always questioned by their steward.
Meren lowered his head to his crossed arms. He felt pressure build up at his temples, as if his head were being squeezed in a grape press. It was as if the members of his family grasped his arms and pulled in different directions; he felt that he was about to split down the middle. He whispered a request to his servant, who began to rub his head.
He was drifting off to sleep when the rubbing at his temples stopped. His eyes flew open, and he tensed and raised his head to see Abu entering the chamber, carrying a flat limestone flake, an ostracon, used to take notes to conserve papyrus. Meren sat up and wrapped a bathing sheet around his hips. His body servant vanished into his bedchamber.
'Forgive me, lord, but a report has arrived from the city police. The house of Unas has been robbed, or rather, it has been rifled. They don't think anything was taken.'
'Have they caught anyone?'
'No, lord. The wife was visiting her parents, and the neighbor, Nebera, reported the crime.'
Abu held out the ostracon. Meren took it and perused the report. Had it occurred at any other house, such a petty offense would have never been brought to his attention. He handed the report back to Abu as Kysen came in, freshly dressed, his hair damp.
'You've heard?' he asked. 'I think Abu and I should visit the house tomorrow.'
'I hope you discover more than the city police did,' Meren said.
His thoughts racing, he stood and padded into his bedchamber. The others followed. He dropped his bathing sheet and allowed his body servant to wrap a clean kilt around him. Kysen tossed him a belt, and he waved his servant out of the room before wrapping it around his waist.
'I grow weary of sparring with intransigent priests,' he said.
Kysen looked up from his perusal of the theft report. 'But you said we couldn't provoke an open quarrel.'
'That was before this new stroke.' Meren rubbed the sun-disk brand on his wrist as he thought, then slipped a leather-and-bronze wrist band over it. 'We must flush the birds from the marsh, Ky.'
'The shards?'
'Aye, the shards. If they're significant, they may be just the goad we need to harry our prey into the open. But we can't tell the priests about them too directly. I suggest you let slip the tale of your discovery when we attend this evening's banquet at Prince Sahure's.'
He smiled at Kysen. Many courtiers also served as priests in different temples. Word would spread to the priests of Amun like the blast of a desert storm.
'You think someone will come to rifle our house?' Kysen asked.
'No, but someone may make a mistake.'
Later that evening Meren made polite conversation with Lady Bentanta at the banquet, all the while watching Kysen laughingly scatter the story of his discovery among the guests. He stood beside a column, a full wine cup in his hand, cursing his ill luck. Bentanta had run him to ground before he could vanish into another room.
'You're worried.'
His attention swerved to the woman in front of him. She was lithe and tall, like a papyrus reed, and she teased him. No other woman had the temerity. She'd been widowed several years, had youth and wealth and several sons and daughters to keep her company. What was worse, she was as clever and perceptive as ever old Queen Tiye had been. He'd known her at a distance since childhood, but he had been betrothed young, at fifteen, and she was already married at thirteen. Meren regarded her with wariness. What had she noticed, and how?
'You imagine it, lady.'
Bentanta made a disgusted sound, which irritated Meren even more.
'I've known you since you wore the sidelock of boyhood, Meren.'
She drifted closer, and he smelled myrrh.
'Your eyes,' she said in a whisper. 'I've known you long enough to read your eyes when the rest of your face is a mask. Does the contention among pharaoh's councillors weigh upon you?'
He backed up until he hit the column. 'You should know, since it's written in my eyes like the glyphs on a temple wall.'
'Why, Meren, my warrior, prince, and Friend of the King, you're afraid of me.'
He opened his mouth, scowling, but Bentanta chuckled softly. She left him then, allowing her arm to brush his as she floated away in a mist of sheer linen and perfume. He glared after her, but soon rearranged his features into a more pleasant guise and slipped deeper into the shadows beyond the reach of the lamps scattered about Sahure's great hall. Musicians struck up a tune, and a line of dancers snaked its way into the room.
Meren grabbed a spice cake from a pile on a table and tore it in half, wishing it were Bentanta's neck. The woman was too clever to be borne. She reminded him of Qenamun. Both had a way of discomfiting, of sliding between bones and tendons with words that should have been innocuous. Qenamun's motives, however, were even more unfathomable than Bentanta's.
He remembered his interview with the man the previous day. He'd sent for the priest because neither Kysen nor Abu had made progress in the matter of Unas's death. In retelling the story of the discovery of the body, Qenamun had been urbane, forthcoming, and open. He'd given no cause for complaint of a lack of cooperation, and aroused in Meren a deep suspicion of his motives. No priest of rank in the temple of Amun was so agreeable without good reason.
Qenamun had been born to his position; his father and his grandfather had been priests in a line stretching back almost to the time of the Hyksos invasions. A distinguished family, moderately wealthy, full of men who managed to survive wars, famines, political havoc. Of them all, Qenamun appeared the most successful. His detractors seemed prey to misfortune, his friends wary of thwarting him. Ebana said Parenefer was considering advancing him to the position of Servant of the God. This was Ebana's rank, and he wasn't pleased.
Qenamun had stood during the whole interview, hands folded in front of him, looking ingenuous in his fragile elegance, his luminous, dark eyes suffused with tranquility.
'I regret not speaking to you sooner,' Meren said. 'But matters of great weight interfered.'
